Trump Falsely Claims NBC ‘Got Caught’ Faking Interview Where He Admitted To Obstruction Of Justice

More than a year after President Trump admitted to NBC News anchor Lester Holt that he fired FBI Director James Comey with the Russia investigation on his mind, the president issued an unhinged tweet accusing Holt of “fudging” their interview.

“What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks – with @NBCNews being the worst. The good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse,” the Trump tweeted.

“When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!” he added.

What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks – with @NBCNews being the worst. The good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse. When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2018

Trump’s evidence-free claim was quickly debunked with a quick visit to NBC’s YouTube channel which features the full 13-minute unedited interview.

“In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,’” Trump told Holt in the May 11, 2017 interview, two days after he fired Comey.

Trump’s explanation for the firing has raised questions over the possibility that Trump obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, a possibility Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating.

Twitter users struggled to make sense of Trump’s latest round of unhinged Twitter attacks:

This, 15 months later, is the first time Trump has publicly accused Lester Holt of “fudging my tape” of the damaging interview where he said he fired Comey over the Russia investigation. That whole unedited exchange has sat online since May 2017: https://t.co/M4jQWxHbro pic.twitter.com/NySKZvqXIq

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 30, 2018

Trump is lying about Lester Holt. The entire unedited interview was posted online. And Trump is likely lying about it because he now understands that he put himself in legal danger by admitting, on camera, that he fired Comey *because* he was investigating Trump’s campaign. https://t.co/sLzEUMgmF5

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) August 30, 2018

Here’s the entire, unedited 13 minute exchange betweenester Holt and Pres. Donald Trump. What the president alleges in the tweet below didn’t happen. — https://t.co/uoQdJiotjg https://t.co/0t4yRZjDtt

— Nolan Hicks (@ndhapple) August 30, 2018

More than a year later, Trump is suddenly claiming that NBC “fudged” his interview with Lester Holt, in which Trump admitted he fired Comey over Russia.

The full interview is available online. What exactly was fudged? https://t.co/YUUtBQThlf

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 30, 2018

FWIW, the entire Lester Holt interview has been posted to NBC's website ever since May 2017. If there's something exculpatory in it, Trump might want to point it out.https://t.co/y9qoQsynoq

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) August 30, 2018